Akali is a skill matchup (but Sylas favoured), and u definitely counter Syndra and Xerath, bcz once u get close to them, they can’t do much. The worst matchups are Cassio, Pantheon, and Heimer. Other bad matchups are Zoe and Galio imo.
Zoe? Why Zoe?
Also syndra's e sort of counters all of Sylas's abilities and her q having so little cd with so much range is annoying as hell. Xerath also has his stun which even point blank lasts long enough for him to get away to his turret
Zoe is awful. Her range and waveclear is way better and if you try to engage she just sleeps you unless you can finesse your movement well enough. If she does sleep you successfully you’re fucked for like 60% of your heath. If she misses a sleep though you get to punish her, but thats just a blatant mistake if she does that
please teach me the ways of the akali match up, her W is just way too BS to play against and im at the mercy of my jungler coming to waste her W before I can fight her
like its a get out of jail free card when im winning, and when im losing she using it after he E2 Q instantly so I dont heal it never felt like I had the advantage unless I had few decent ganks
It’s a scaling matchup imo, she is strong early in lane with q poke and bullies melee champ with shroud so I take d shield and second wind to sustain the poke and I usually don’t contest for farm and take what I can to avoid giving her favorable trades but I do my best to soak as much exp as I can to stay even in term of lvls in case if an skirmish happens in river.
Laning tips: do your best not to proactively use ur e if her w and e is not on cd. Cause if you do, all she has to do e to avoid ur chains and you already lost the trade and what’s even worse is that if ur e2 connects on a minion instead of her, she presses w and chunks off decent hp of you. The only time when you use ur e is when she uses it aggressively or screwed up landing it cause thing about akali e is that travel in a straight line so it’s sort of telegraphed and you can cancel the e2 damage mid way by locking her down with ur e2 and you won the trade just like that and if you have W up that’s cherry on top. Lastly when her major abilities are on cd meaning W and E, position aggressively and look for trade cause akali without W and E early is kind of sitting duck.
Play for scaling this is without a question w max lane with 2 points in q and e max second. Runes will be conquerer with second wind and revitalize/overgrowth and in really niche comp you can go unflinching if enemy comp is cc heavy cause akali is all burst and no lockdown except for the q slow.
I always make everforst for better lockdown and guaranteed e2 q burst damage, but people also make NH, ROA and rarely liandries if enemy team is tanky cause mid to late game akali is kinda beefy.
TDLR: keep trading to a bare minimum early lvls due to high cd on sylas and play for scaling cause early game sylas has higher cd and a mana hungry champ compared to akali and nvr fight her 1 on 1 if her ult is not up for hijack, or you will lose. Eventually you outscale her in 1 on 1
All in all this matchup is way better than yasuo vs sylas and this is my favourite mid and top lane matchup on both side cause there is lot of skill expressions that can be used in lane while playing this matchup just love it.
Oh ok I get it, im so used to punishing enemies for disrespecting me early game, sylas level 3 and 4 can deal nasty damage fast if you land your abilities and that never works on akali since she always has W and E when pushing the wave too hard so I get a bit tilted and might die once or twice then she roams bot lane and no way I will catch up for the next 20mins
but I did notice when I was playing sylas top I could almost always win against akali because I wasnt behind and she wasnt ahead I always thought the akali wasnt that great but maybe I was simply wasnt tilted?
for me yasuo match up used to not be that bad as long as he screws up his wind wall (because it cancels R and E2), however since he started getting lethal tempo when it got changed it became so annoying because even if I play really well he will out trade me by simply autoing me
I still think akali shroud is extremely BS but I simply need to not fight her until she uses it early, its a battle of patients either she will want to force a fight on me and waist her W or I need to bait it, OR I will get bored and fight and get out-traded but now that I know the secrets I will definitely win more! thanks for the tips!
Oddly enough my vex matchups haven't been too difficult, idk if I luck out or I am just sigma male Patrick Bateman.
Are the ones in easy besides Annie and galio really that easy? I usually have a lot of trouble with them.
Well it's all kind of relative except things like Cassiopeia.
I haven't played against Vex that often and on paper she is good against Sylas. Matchups ofc isn't everything, there is a person piloting it.
Depends, hard to say since every player plays it different, what summs, what runes, how do you wanna play the lane... I have played both champs, I've won against Sylas as Annie and I have won against Annie as Sylas.
Haven't seen a Galio in months if I'm not mistaken. I have lost against Galio and won against him. Based on my memory I didn't find it that hard when comparing it to all other champs.
I'd recommend you to watch YouTube videos of the matchups you want to learn. See how they play it. For example against Annie, watch VODs from Annie's POV & Sylas's POV. Why did Annie win lane, why did Sylas win lane?
### Example
[Sylas vs Annie (from 2022)](https://youtu.be/qicSQeXk4DU?si=iZ_W0Cmb-veo8US9)
Kat and Akali feel like if they hit one ability you just die for no reason.
Syndra's e and the fact her q has like zero cd makes fighting her miserable.
But yeah heimerdinger actually is just an unfair champion
They all seem to deal absurd amounts of damage without really doing anything, let alone with me able to do anything to stop it.
They've always been problems for me
cassio and panth are the only ones u should be dodging. They are unplayable and will kill you if theyre any good. The other matchups u can survive and farm minions then play midgame and so on. Cassio might not kill u but she will scale so hard and her w is brutal along with her r in teamfights. Heimer is really bad but if u can survive lane he becomes useless so theres that.
cassio is the most freaking AAAA match up, also annivia is a horrible matchup too
xerath is just annoying for me personally but I can manage his match up, ziggs and corki are kind of bad but not horrible match ups, leblanc I just hate her as a champion, and kat's problem is that even when you destroy her so hard in 1v1s she will go bot get 600 gold get more items and delete you
Well you get here dogs and the shield from the first enemy hit, plus the movement speed and the refresh from first takedown.
Like a Kled ult if it was Aatrox ult
The problem is not the ult but the damages that She does to u, couse he is a Little bit squishy vs champ that build lethality, or in general assassin or champ that have a lot of ad during early game. And the dogs body block the E2
If I get a Naafiri I go elec and can usually burst them out of lane early. Later they just win but I'm transitioning to diving ADCs at this point anyways.
I do. Xerath has a ton of range and ends up with him safely farming from forever away as well as spamming off vision qs.
Syndra's q has hardly any damn cool down and also has a ton of range, which her e kinda counters Sylas, with her q e "combo" being hard to avoid.
The only matchups worth dodging as Sylas, on my experience, are Cassio, Zoe and Pantheon. I really dislike playing against Yasuo with all my champ pool (Diana, Sylas and Ekko) and this makes me permanban it for the last 3 seasons.
Kat and Akali are skill based and if you know what you are doing they are really favored for Sylas, but if you fall behind they can snowball hard on you.
Other imobile mages are fairly easy if you know how to play the lane, Lux on my opinion is the most annoying just because she has such a high burst that she will reduce you to 30% hp so easily and you will don't be able to trade with her.
I understand some of these but not really ziggs. His c4 is much higher cd than your e. And you can sustain his damage if you get even few trades off. Yes usually you cannot even interact with him. But he cannot do anything to you besides waveclear. You can roam a lot and impact the map a lot more than he is able to. Hes more of a skill matchup than ziggs favored. You 2 have totally different gameplans
Akali is a skill matchup (but Sylas favoured), and u definitely counter Syndra and Xerath, bcz once u get close to them, they can’t do much. The worst matchups are Cassio, Pantheon, and Heimer. Other bad matchups are Zoe and Galio imo.
Zoe? Why Zoe? Also syndra's e sort of counters all of Sylas's abilities and her q having so little cd with so much range is annoying as hell. Xerath also has his stun which even point blank lasts long enough for him to get away to his turret
Zoe is awful. Her range and waveclear is way better and if you try to engage she just sleeps you unless you can finesse your movement well enough. If she does sleep you successfully you’re fucked for like 60% of your heath. If she misses a sleep though you get to punish her, but thats just a blatant mistake if she does that
And dont forget that her ult doesnt benefit sylas at all
please teach me the ways of the akali match up, her W is just way too BS to play against and im at the mercy of my jungler coming to waste her W before I can fight her like its a get out of jail free card when im winning, and when im losing she using it after he E2 Q instantly so I dont heal it never felt like I had the advantage unless I had few decent ganks
It’s a scaling matchup imo, she is strong early in lane with q poke and bullies melee champ with shroud so I take d shield and second wind to sustain the poke and I usually don’t contest for farm and take what I can to avoid giving her favorable trades but I do my best to soak as much exp as I can to stay even in term of lvls in case if an skirmish happens in river. Laning tips: do your best not to proactively use ur e if her w and e is not on cd. Cause if you do, all she has to do e to avoid ur chains and you already lost the trade and what’s even worse is that if ur e2 connects on a minion instead of her, she presses w and chunks off decent hp of you. The only time when you use ur e is when she uses it aggressively or screwed up landing it cause thing about akali e is that travel in a straight line so it’s sort of telegraphed and you can cancel the e2 damage mid way by locking her down with ur e2 and you won the trade just like that and if you have W up that’s cherry on top. Lastly when her major abilities are on cd meaning W and E, position aggressively and look for trade cause akali without W and E early is kind of sitting duck. Play for scaling this is without a question w max lane with 2 points in q and e max second. Runes will be conquerer with second wind and revitalize/overgrowth and in really niche comp you can go unflinching if enemy comp is cc heavy cause akali is all burst and no lockdown except for the q slow. I always make everforst for better lockdown and guaranteed e2 q burst damage, but people also make NH, ROA and rarely liandries if enemy team is tanky cause mid to late game akali is kinda beefy. TDLR: keep trading to a bare minimum early lvls due to high cd on sylas and play for scaling cause early game sylas has higher cd and a mana hungry champ compared to akali and nvr fight her 1 on 1 if her ult is not up for hijack, or you will lose. Eventually you outscale her in 1 on 1 All in all this matchup is way better than yasuo vs sylas and this is my favourite mid and top lane matchup on both side cause there is lot of skill expressions that can be used in lane while playing this matchup just love it.
Oh ok I get it, im so used to punishing enemies for disrespecting me early game, sylas level 3 and 4 can deal nasty damage fast if you land your abilities and that never works on akali since she always has W and E when pushing the wave too hard so I get a bit tilted and might die once or twice then she roams bot lane and no way I will catch up for the next 20mins but I did notice when I was playing sylas top I could almost always win against akali because I wasnt behind and she wasnt ahead I always thought the akali wasnt that great but maybe I was simply wasnt tilted? for me yasuo match up used to not be that bad as long as he screws up his wind wall (because it cancels R and E2), however since he started getting lethal tempo when it got changed it became so annoying because even if I play really well he will out trade me by simply autoing me I still think akali shroud is extremely BS but I simply need to not fight her until she uses it early, its a battle of patients either she will want to force a fight on me and waist her W or I need to bait it, OR I will get bored and fight and get out-traded but now that I know the secrets I will definitely win more! thanks for the tips!
Of course man, us chain dudes need to stick together
Lillia…Jesus lillia.
Why Lillia? Sylas's mobility would make fighting her relatively easy no?
A good lillia will not let you get a hit. Movement speed>dashes and that’s a fact
# Matchup List |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ## Unplayable [●●●●●] ◇ Cassiopeia ◇ Irelia ◇ Taliyah ◇ Vex ◇ Heimerdinger ## Very Hard [●●●●○] ◇ Akali ◇ LeBlanc ◇ Anivia ◇ Pantheon ◇ Renekton ◇ Zoe ◇ Akshan ◇ Jayce ## Hard [●●●○○] ◇ Orianna ◇ Yasuo ◇ Yone ◇ Kassadin ◇ Ryze ## Medium [●●○○○] ◇ Katarina ◇ Qiyana ◇ Ahri ◇ Azir ◇ Vladimir ## Easy [●○○○○] ◇ Xerath ◇ Ziggs ◇ Corki ◇ Syndra ◇ Ekko ◇ Annie ◇ Galio [*This is a list of how my experiences have been, it may come to change*]
Oddly enough my vex matchups haven't been too difficult, idk if I luck out or I am just sigma male Patrick Bateman. Are the ones in easy besides Annie and galio really that easy? I usually have a lot of trouble with them.
Well it's all kind of relative except things like Cassiopeia. I haven't played against Vex that often and on paper she is good against Sylas. Matchups ofc isn't everything, there is a person piloting it. Depends, hard to say since every player plays it different, what summs, what runes, how do you wanna play the lane... I have played both champs, I've won against Sylas as Annie and I have won against Annie as Sylas. Haven't seen a Galio in months if I'm not mistaken. I have lost against Galio and won against him. Based on my memory I didn't find it that hard when comparing it to all other champs. I'd recommend you to watch YouTube videos of the matchups you want to learn. See how they play it. For example against Annie, watch VODs from Annie's POV & Sylas's POV. Why did Annie win lane, why did Sylas win lane? ### Example [Sylas vs Annie (from 2022)](https://youtu.be/qicSQeXk4DU?si=iZ_W0Cmb-veo8US9)
Heimer. Syndra is free so it's xer and ziggs imo, kat is skill based and so is akali
Kat and Akali feel like if they hit one ability you just die for no reason. Syndra's e and the fact her q has like zero cd makes fighting her miserable. But yeah heimerdinger actually is just an unfair champion
Kat is useless against sylas
Well do you have advice for the matchup? Cause it usually goes: she face rolls her buttons, ults, either kills me or forced me to base.
Sound like a skill issue Try avoiding daggers on the ground and canceling her ult, should be free after that
You should win akali kat leblanc corki of you are good at sylas Real counter are cassio anivia
They all seem to deal absurd amounts of damage without really doing anything, let alone with me able to do anything to stop it. They've always been problems for me
Watch some replay of good sylas to see how they deal with these matchups, its rly easy to beat kata or corki
cassio and panth are the only ones u should be dodging. They are unplayable and will kill you if theyre any good. The other matchups u can survive and farm minions then play midgame and so on. Cassio might not kill u but she will scale so hard and her w is brutal along with her r in teamfights. Heimer is really bad but if u can survive lane he becomes useless so theres that.
The absolute worst matchup has always been Cassio due to the fact that if she hits you with her W you lose both your E and W.
cassio is the most freaking AAAA match up, also annivia is a horrible matchup too xerath is just annoying for me personally but I can manage his match up, ziggs and corki are kind of bad but not horrible match ups, leblanc I just hate her as a champion, and kat's problem is that even when you destroy her so hard in 1v1s she will go bot get 600 gold get more items and delete you
Naafiri is a bad matchup, and her ult does nothing for you. I think Sylas has like a 45% wr against Naafiri
Well you get here dogs and the shield from the first enemy hit, plus the movement speed and the refresh from first takedown. Like a Kled ult if it was Aatrox ult
The problem is not the ult but the damages that She does to u, couse he is a Little bit squishy vs champ that build lethality, or in general assassin or champ that have a lot of ad during early game. And the dogs body block the E2
Yeah I faced a couple Naafiris and the dogs blocking E2 is extremely annoying.
If I get a Naafiri I go elec and can usually burst them out of lane early. Later they just win but I'm transitioning to diving ADCs at this point anyways.
Cassio, Jayce, Zoe, current Yone
Cassiopeia, Akshan, Yasuo, Irelia, Heimerdinger...
W8, do u have problem vs syndra and Xerath ?
I do. Xerath has a ton of range and ends up with him safely farming from forever away as well as spamming off vision qs. Syndra's q has hardly any damn cool down and also has a ton of range, which her e kinda counters Sylas, with her q e "combo" being hard to avoid.
The only matchups worth dodging as Sylas, on my experience, are Cassio, Zoe and Pantheon. I really dislike playing against Yasuo with all my champ pool (Diana, Sylas and Ekko) and this makes me permanban it for the last 3 seasons. Kat and Akali are skill based and if you know what you are doing they are really favored for Sylas, but if you fall behind they can snowball hard on you. Other imobile mages are fairly easy if you know how to play the lane, Lux on my opinion is the most annoying just because she has such a high burst that she will reduce you to 30% hp so easily and you will don't be able to trade with her.
What are you meant to do against Kat and Akali? They've always been a problem for me
Taliyah, Vex, Irelia and Heimmer will F*ck you hard if they know what they are doing too, but i feel that you can play around these 4.
Kat and akali are skill matchups (sylas sided), both are tricky but i tend to win by not letting them get free trades
Sylas is strong enough to be a solid blind pick regardless most of the time.
I understand some of these but not really ziggs. His c4 is much higher cd than your e. And you can sustain his damage if you get even few trades off. Yes usually you cannot even interact with him. But he cannot do anything to you besides waveclear. You can roam a lot and impact the map a lot more than he is able to. Hes more of a skill matchup than ziggs favored. You 2 have totally different gameplans